Attacking With No Remorse
by RomanticFictionFreak
Summary: Dimitri's change to Dhampir again was a shock to the entire Moroi world. Some refuse to believe it. If someone close to Dimitri were to see him again, back in his Dhampir form, they might find it not only unbelievable, but a total lie.


**Okay, so this is just a one shot that came to me one night (hehe, while I was reading Vampire Academy) and so, I guess its just one of those random, but good writing inspirations. Anyway, like I said, this is just a scene that popped into my head and I just had to write it. So, here's some background info, cuz I didn't bother to actually tie a real introduction to this:**

**Katerina was a friend of Dimitri, but she's a Dhampir who declined the life of Moroi protection and tries to blend into Human life. She attends high school like every average teen, but she keeps contact with the Moroi world (just as a precaution). She knows about Dimitri turning Strigoi, and has longed since let him go, unknowing that of him turned Dhampir again. ****Since Dimitri was her friend, (and this is speaking in a slight impossible situation) he decided to visit her at her school (while with Rose, for those of you who have already read Last Sacrifice.) He doesn't have a lot of time, so he decides to just visit her in class, and this is when they meet.**

* * *

I hadn't expected what happened in the next few seconds.

On the outside, through the classroom's windows, was a silhouette. A figure I would recognize at any angle, any visible distance.

A figure so dangerously familiar. It was undeniable. And I felt something in me snap into place, and yet I was frozen where I was.

But when he walked through the door, my eyes flashed to his. Time stopped. In that moment, there was a brief connection.

Everything about him so unearthly familiar, his stance, his body, _everything_. So comfortingly familiar, his presence was so natural, it took all of me not to embrace him. In those milliseconds, I couldn't identify why it was I longed for him so much. I just missed him. That was all I could comprehend. Until my memory jolted inside my thoughts.

My body instantly coiled, out of instinct, when I realized it. This wasn't my friend. This wasn't Dimitri. This creature of death shared his face…but it wasn't him.

After that realization, everything melted away. The classroom, the people, my emotions—all disappeared into useless things in the background. As if it were only Dimitri and me.

Forgetting everything, I suddenly became aware of the short second that passed.

It was as if my humanity, my morals, were pushed far aside, when I lunged at him, swiping my almost forgotten silver stake from the inner sheath at my waist, and swung.

(PAGE BREAK)

It missed.

But I found the satisfaction of feeling the tip of my stake slash his cheek, creating a dark line of scarlet. My satisfaction dimmed when I remembered how he would be able to heal easily. But took it, anyway, as a light victory. But as he turned to face me, his cheek still bled, the cut—long and fresh—was not closing like a normal Strigoi wound. The blood dripped down his face trailing his jaw. And a foreign sense of hesitation overtook me. I paused, bringing the hand that held the stake to my side and brought the other to touch his face—no, to touch the cut itself. The still open, still raw tear on his face. He winced when I did, but otherwise didn't move, and I drew my hand back, close to my face, examining the droplets of red coating my finger tips. The wound was so normal…so unexpected… so…human.

I met his gaze in flash, my eyes wide, and he stared at me with those bright brown eyes. With a look of firm determination, and understanding, and the old-Dimitri pride.

_Those bright brown eyes._ His eyes, I saw, were clean. Red-less. The vicious look that lingered in every Strigoi's stare (or more like _glare_) was gone.

He reached for me, hesitantly, and lightly gripped my wrists that was still raised, now with the streaks of his fallen blood from my fingers.

I knew I should have flinched away, or make an attempt to snap his wrist, at least. But I didn't. I was too shocked to move. My thoughts running through my mind too fast for me to comprehend. Yet slowly, they unfolded themselves, as I stared at his hand on mine.

His skin was the same light, sexy tan. I recognized it instantly—the change. Which is what probably got me to react so instinctively in the first place. But I hadn't believed in the change. Not after four months of my heart claiming he was dead. Dead and a monster. But the hand that had contacted my own flesh was warm with life. I couldn't sense the Strigoi in him. Not a single trace.

But that thought didn't stop my next move. It just wasn't strong enough to outweigh the other more obvious, more believable side of my subconscious. _Strigoi. Kill. Fear. Trained. Them. Dead. _

_Don't hesitate_.

I whipped my leg around, my swiftness catching him off guard. I only saw a glimpse of his eyes widen in surprise before being blown back by such force. Strigoi or not, he was still Dimitri. He caught his balance as quick as I had attacked him and went into his stance.

But I noticed with a frown, it wasn't his offensive stance, but defense. He wasn't going to fight.

This thought had sudden control over my muscles as they untensed and relaxed my posture. My anger deflating to nothing, except pure shock, confusion and heartbreak.

The heartbreak of his death all over again.

I hadn't been aware of how my guard on him had disappeared and I turned away so my back was to him. Shock fogged the awareness in my mind, and I couldn't understand the pain in my chest. Dimitri had not hit me, but there was something. It blocked my passage to breathe and forced me to choke the air in and out of my lungs. I felt blinded. Because my head hurt so much I would rather it exploded and abandoned my ruined remains and leave me at peace.

I didn't have anything left in me at that moment. It was as if Dimitri's presence sucked out what little comprehension I had. Nothing made sense, no decision was clear. Everything told me to strike another attack, but then something told me I didn't have the strength within me to hurt him again. Hurting him, hurting me. A vicious cycle that was painful either way. I was trapped inside my head, unable to free my thoughts, my self knowledge. I would have almost laughed at the situation if I wasn't in so much distress, What had Dimitri done to me?

Then I realized I really _was_ blinded. I couldn't see—everything was blurry and smeared together in colored fog-like scenery.

Everything inside me led to complete frustration.

Until somehow, my eyes cleared and I saw the dried red imprints of where Dimitri's blood rested on my skin and my senses flashed back like a bolt of lightening.

I had been sobbing. I could remember the feeling and feel the dampness on my cheeks and chin.

Mentally, I cursed the show of emotion. Feeling ever so vulnerable, as a dhampir, training always shaped me to be strong. It always taught me that, especially when training with…

I whirled around and stared at Dimitri. Drinking in his features. His normal, beautiful dhampir features.

His brown eyes—deeply compassionate as always—looking well deeply into mine.

"You're supposed to be dead!" I screamed at him, not wanting to sound accusing, but unstable to control myself. I was surprised by my outburst, but these words weren't finished. I kept pouring words out, harsher than I would've ever intended.

He didn't respond; it was as if he didn't hear me.

"Four months!" I continued in hysterics—angry at becoming so exposed, so weak, but again unable to stop the words from forming on my tongue before leaving through my voice. "You're gone! You're dead!"

There was only a short pause—a long stretch of thick silence.

"That's the thing, Katerina," Dimitri spoke, his sweet voice drained of all the evil in its sound, in his tone, in his words and how he pronounced them, with his slight Russian accent coated over it all, so beautifully, my heart swelled with reminisce.

I fought with myself against the dangerous territory I was stalking on now, the dangerous territory of hope.

"I'm not," he continued, "Not anymore."

I resisted the urge to grip my hair and scream out the ache stored so tightly in my chest.

"No. No, no, no…" I kept murmuring over and over, the only thing that could escape my lips, but air.

"You keep saying the same word…" Dimitri's unmistakable Russian voice whispered back softly, "does it really help you believe it?"

I resisted the urge to strike at him again, to grab the nearest chair and thrust it at him with my life's force. Anything, any attempt to hit him.

And I realized, with bitter acknowledgement, that I only wanted to hit him to prove he was real. To get closer to him and _see_ the changes for myself. To feel the warmth that radiated from him, see the veins pulsing behind his tanned skin.

And _feel_ his humanity, like I had wanted to for so long.

* * *

**So this is it. I'm kind of uncomfortable with the ending...but anyway... I haven't finished Last Sacrifice yet, so please no spoilers! But other than that, feel free to comment and review! I really liked how it turned out. I mean, if I were a trained Dhampir on the verge of hysterics, I gotta say, I'd react pretty much the same as Katerina. REVIEW!**

**For those of you who may question it: Why would Dimitri want to visit her? Well, maybe they were going to pass by and since he really wants some sort of redemption, he probably feels really bad about leaving her behind with all that loss, maybe redeem a past relationship in an attempt to regain his former self, another closure to what his horrid self had caused.. So, IDK, he just wanted to. The fact is, it's a fanfic so enjoy it! :]**

**And a little background info on Katerina: she experienced some training as a Dhampir, and even some personal training from Dimitri when they were younger. She embraces the fact that she's a Dhampir, in fact she has no problem with it, she even likes it, she just didn't want to devote her life to protecting someone else when she still wants to live her life.**

**Okay, sorry for the long author's notes, but REVIEW ANYWAY!**


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